Editor’s Comment

In the ongoing battle for beauty therapy to be taken more seriously by Government, a new report showing the full extent of its contribution to the economy should prove a powerful tool.

The fact that hair and beauty professions combined employ more than 300,000 people in almost 50,000 businesses, generating around £6.6 billion each year, certainly sounds impressive, and you can read more stats from the report in our story on page 13.

As well as pushing for stronger regulation via mandatory licensing, the report aims to promote beauty therapy as a credible career choice in a bid to improve access to advice in schools and help us to move away from the outdated perception of beauty as a fall-back option for students who aren’t accepted on to more academic courses.

Of course, the career options for therapists are plentiful, as we demonstrate every month by profiling a different route in our regular Career Path feature. This issue, we find out what it takes to make it as a session tech, from how to build contacts to working under pressure, The Daily Nail’s Samantha Cox gives us the lowdown on page 112.

With more therapists now moving down the advanced aesthetic route as a way to grow business and profits, we also take a closer look at skin needling this month (see page 68), exploring the resurgence in popularity of mesotherapy as well as the potential changes to rules around microneedling that you need to be aware of.

Whichever part of the industry you choose to specialise in, there’s no denying it’s a powerful and exciting one to be a part of.